For or against the AV?

I am voting Yes.

Where I live, there are two parties that are going to win the seat in the elections. No other party has a chance under the current system as many vote to keep the other party out. If we have AV, then people can vote for their true choice, be that UKIP, Green, BNP, Labour etc knowing that their second preference votes can still make a difference to keeping someone out of office.

Look at the elections in 2009 and 2010. UKIP gained 2,498,226 votes, yet the year afterwards, despite a higher turnout they only polled 919,546 votes. How is that fair to the voting electorate?

When it came to electing the Conservative Party leader, David Cameron who favours first past the post for us, would have been serving under David Davis if first past the post had been used to elect the Conservative leader in 2005!

The bottom line is that I do not see how it is unfair to have an electoral system where 50% of the electorate has to back an MP for the MP to represent them.

Against it as I feel it's more unfair than the system we have now and will mean more coalitions. After this disastrous coalition, I hope I never see another. I'm a Labour supporter, but I would sooner see the Tories govern on their own than with the Libdems. The Libdems say they have got two thirds of their manifesto through, but WHY should they be entitled to get ANY of their manifesto through? THEY FINISHED THIRD, behind Labour and NONE of Labour's manifesto has gone through. Also, what price has been paid for the things they got. They got the tax threshold raised, but who's to say that if they hadn't got that, then perhaps we wouldn't have had VAT raised to 20% as well as a 1% rise in NI. You can bet your life that if the Tories have been forced to give money away in one way, they will have taken it back in another. AV can throw up some really bad results that could mean a candidate who gets a vast percentage more of the votes in the first round could lose to someone who got a small percentage of the votes and the people that voted heavily for the first one won't even get a chance with their second choice. Let's say the Tories were way out in front on the first vote with Libdem 2nd and Labour 3rd other parties 4th and 5th, then the 2nd vote of the 5 party is added to the other 4, lets say they all vote Labour, but that still doesn't give them enough, so 2nd votes of the 4th party are added, let's say they to vote Labour and Labour move into 2nd place, but still with not enough seats, then the 2nd votes of the Libdem votes are counted as they are now in 3rd place, they vote Labour and finally put Labour in front, but still not with over 50%, but that doesn't matter. The outcome is the party that was initially 3rd choice on the 1st vote wins, but what happened to the 2nd vote of the Tories, should their 2nd choice not count, what if they all choose the Libdems as their 2nd choice and if those had been added while the Libdems were still in the race, that it would have given them a higher percentage than Labour ended up having. So all we end up with is SOME peoples 2ND choice dictating who wins, SOME peoples 1ST and 2ND choice counting for nothing, and a candidate winning who only a small percentage wanted IN THE 1ST PLACE.

I am voting no for the following reasons.

1. Like others have pointed out some people get more votes than others.

2. It is a crap system - FPTP is also a crap system but why bother replacing one crap system with another. Lib Dem's dont even want it they want PR

3. It is even more undemocratic than FPTP as it will lead to more coalitions Look at this coalition, 29 million people voted for what they wanted and then 8 people (all middle aged, upper or upper middle class, white and male) ripped up two manifesto's which the 29 million people voted on and came up with a coalition agreement which didn't look anything like either of the two manifesto's and not one single person voted on it.

4. Least significantly, and not what I am basing my vote on but on a personal level I hope the people of Great Britain disappoint Nick Clegg as much as he has disappointed the people of Great Britain.

EDIT - The naked con....

1. I meant some voters get more votes than others. i.e. someone who votes for a fringe party could have 2,3.4 or even more votes. Someone who votes say Labour in the North East or Tory in rural oxfordshire only gets one. Not politicians getting more votes.

2. Where have I said that AV is better than FPTP - I said they are both crap systems. I personally think AV is the worst of the two.

3. My personal opinion is that there will be more coalitions, meaning more undemocratic coalition agreements.

4. The fact that a rejection of AV upsetting Clegg is just an added bonus and not a valid reason not to, I was quite clear about that when I wrote my original answer.

I'm absolutely voting NO to AV because:

1. There's nothing wrong with our first past the post system; if you get the most votes, you win. I don't see anything unfair about that.

2. A person's 3rd or 4th choice if a far cry from their 1st. There is a big difference between WANTING somebody in with your #1 choice, and SETTLING for somebody with your 3rd or 4th choice. When you get into round 2, 3, 4 etc a person's 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc choice has EXACTLY the same weight as a person's 1st round choice. How is that fair?

3. One person can have more than one say, whereas others may only get one vote. E.g. my #1 choice gets through to a 6th and final round. I've only had 1 vote, whereas a voter who's 1 went out in the 1st round, 2nd went out in the second round etc would have essentially voted 6 times.

4. It's an overly complicated system that will take ALOT more time and expense to deliver a result.

5. We would have different systems to Parliamentary and Local Elections. This would inevitably lead to an increase in the number of spoilt ballot papers.

6. The only party that will benefit Lib Dems, and that is most definitely bad for our country.

7. Why should we change to a system that nobody wants? A "miserable little compromise"?!

7. Look at the Labour leadership competition... enough said!

I find it funny that Clegg came out today to criticise the No Campaign for it's "lies", yet the yes campaign's name is one big lie... "Yes to Fairer Votes"? Bit misleading/ presumptuous...

i does no longer vote for the alternative Vote. i want a distinctive form of AV. i want AV in maximum situations yet in contrast to that so i could stick to FPTP. If i ought to vote. What i could recommend is a X-ingredient form balloting equipment. Say there are 5 events. I vote for huge type a million. And in basic terms huge type a million, in basic terms one vote at a time. huge type 3 have been given least votes and is kicked out and then WE VOTE lower back. we pick lower back our well-liked occasion and notice what happens. So now I vote for huge type a million lower back yet interior the subsequent election huge type a million is voted off and that i ought to vote lower back alongside with the winners. If that's a draw loser we turn a coin, if this is draw usual so each occasion gets comparable votes then we re vote. somebody ought to've ignored out lol.

Under Fptp an MP can be elected with 25% of the votes and the other 75% of the votes is wasted. How can that be democratic? It is a system that serves the 2 large parties, but not the people. It has to be abolished. Any move to more democracy is better than this dictatorship of the elite.

A great big NO.

It is a stupid idea thought up by Clegg as a means of his Lib/Dems possibly getting more seats in Parliament.

To disregard the hard fought principle of 'One man , one vote' will lead to anarchy and NOT the fairer system Clegg claims.

If there are 6 candidates and the person coming 5th place with, shall we say, only 10 first choice votes he or she will go into the next round and because he/she has many 2nd choice votes may come second last again but will still go into the next round and so on until only 2 are left therefore although coming 2nd last originally they could actually win the seat with only 10 people actually wanting them in the first place.

Absolutely crazy and only a complete idiot like Clegg would want this.

edit. PS. I would remind people who vote for AV that most, if not all, people vote for a particular Party at an election and not just for an individual person. Therefore people will vote for the party which most represents their beliefs. If you have AV you could end up with someone with totally opposite beliefs and anyone could do a Clegg and go back on any promises made pre-election.

No. And that's because the bottom-placed candidates are usually from anti-progressive parties and their second preferences will actually be counted first before moving up the list until 50% is reached. This is not democratic and gives them way too much influence. I want full PR with everybody's preferences taken into account, not Tories getting in because 500 BNP voters marked them second.

I will only vote for one man, one vote. The present system and the proposed AV are both undemocratic and guaranteed to tie us into the lib lab con for ever. One man, one vote is the only fair democratic system. The reason the lib lab con doesn't like it is that it would wreck their gravy train. The reason the British have ...AGAIN... backed down and licked @rse, as per usual, is completely beyond me. One man, one vote is what was originally proposed, its what the British wanted. The British need to grow a set and demand it.

Votes for ‘Others’ than the two main parties has steadily increased over time from about 1% in the 1800’s to about 5% by 1900 with 12.5% of seats, 14% by 1950 with 5% of seats, 25% by 1974 with 5% of seats, 19% by 1979 with 4% of seats, 26% by 1997 with 11.5% of seats and in the present parliament, 35% of voters voted for ‘Others’ and got 12% of seats. FPTP is fine if you’re one of the big two parties in the election as boundaries are re-drawn and re-drawn.

FPTP gives no representation to at least a quarter of the electorate who do bother to keep voting and about 51.2% if you include those who just don’t bother to vote anymore. I’m not sure one way or the other if AV will make a great deal of difference with Cameron tinkering away with our Corpocracy for his own ends, but I do know it’s fairer. I would hope that it would lead to a more diverse parliament, instead of just the main three. If you’re quite happy to sit on your pile of Tory or Labour seats at the expense of others, then fine, but that’s not what corpocracy is about ( perhaps you’d also have been a gentry landowner against giving the vote to the ordinary peasant in the 1800s or a man against giving the votes to women in 1928 or a racist against giving the vote to blacks in 1968 in the US or a Loyalist bigot against giving the vote to Northern Irish Catholics in 1969 ).

List of United Kingdom general elections. ( See graph at top of page and at the bottom you can click on the results of any election. )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_genera...

United Kingdom general election, 1837

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_genera...

United Kingdom general election, 1979 Results

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_genera...

United Kingdom general election, 2010 Results

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_genera...

One man, one vote?? ( just a tad outdated, don’t you think? )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_man,_one_vote

What ever happened to the 15,000,000+ who just don’t bother to vote anymore?

Where’s their representation in parliament?

Crow – “ One man, one vote is what was originally proposed” back in the days when the ‘choice’ was between two parties only, the Whigs or the Tories. Nothing else. Perhaps you’d like to do back to the days of the Tories and Whigs? lol.

Hal –

1) That’s what usually happens in elections. Would you rather everyone drew straws?

2) So you want to keep the worse system? Okay.

3) Same thing happened in 1997. Just one man Tory Bliar, ended cabinet consensus government, ignored the country and took us to two bloody wars. Australia have had 2 coalitions in 80 years, FPTP has had 2 in 37 years and several near misses.

4) In ten or fifteen years time, you won’t even remember who Nick Clegg was. This is for you grandchildren’s grandchildren.

5) See my answer here in ref to 4) - http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ak...